Markdown Is the New Word 5.1

May 21st, 2011

We are legion, the folks who recognize that the Mac is not a Typewriter, and yet want – crave, actually – a blank piece of carbonless copy paper with its vertical lines at 40 and 60 characters on which we honed our skills, such as they are.

So when I read Kevin Lipe’s Guest Post at Forkbombr, Markdown is the new Word 5.1, I experienced a certain mind-meld, not to say an urge to shout out “Yes!” and punch the air like a mad person. It’s so true. Word processing has indeed been going downhill since take-your-pick died.

I too have tried a gazillion alternatives to the dominant wordly processors, and while each of them intrigued me for a while, eventually they all failed to satisfy. Unlike Kevin, however, although I have known about Markdown for a goodly while, I never bothered to learn it. I mean, what’s the point when a even craptastic writing tool will do all that for you, albeit at some cost.